Plans for a new Middle School don’t satisfy School Dept.
Published on September 5th, 2001
STONEHAM, MA - It’s back to the drafting board for Mount Vernon Architects of Stoneham, the firm charged with designing a new Stoneham Middle School.
The entire process is still in the exploratory stage, but the School Department has paid Mount Vernon $20,000 for a “feasibility study,” and the School Committee isn’t satisfied.
“We paid Mount Vernon to work with us to come up with the best plan, so I’m sure they’ll continue to work with us,” said Superintendent of Schools Joseph Connelly.
Mount Vernon Project Manager Bill Peters is on vacation and did not return a message as of press time.
According to School Committee member Jeanne Craigie, the School Committee will not ask for money to build a new Middle School until the elementary school building project is complete.
“We need to ask for more money at Town Meeting,” Craigie said. If all goes as planned, and almost nothing has, the last of the new elementary schools will open in September 2004.
But efforts continue to find out where what kind of new Middle School will go.
The feasibility study details possible sites, designs and costs of a new Middle School, and some School Committee members are worried by Mount Vernon’s conclusions.
The $25 million price tag is not shocking, but the size of the school — particularly its encroachment on playing fields — and neighbors’ concerns about traffic have given the School Committee second thoughts about building the Middle School on the High School grounds off Franklin Street.
The Middle School Feasibility Committee formed last year by the School Committee recommended the High School site after Mount Vernon architects said they could fit the new school onto the footprint of the existing tennis courts. But the feasibility report released to the School Committee this year shows a school building covering the courts, a section of the parking lot and part of the rear playing fields.
“We accepted the $200,000 donation from Donna Weiss for those ball fields,” Craigie said.
The School Department accepted the donation, promising to refurbish the rear playing fields and add a monument to Saul Weiss. “Are we going to do that, then rip them up? We promised we wouldn’t touch them,” Craigie said. She is against infringing on the fields.
School Committee member David Sheils said the Committee and Mount Vernon will meet again in September.
“We have some questions to ask,” Sheils said. “We’re going to go back and ask Mount Vernon to revisit their plans and check other sites.”
Options include using land further behind the High School with an access road diverting traffic toward Pond Street instead of Franklin, or building the school on the existing Middle School site on Central Street.
The School Department must find out whether the wooded area behind the High School is buildable and talk to neighbors. The Central Street site has been eyed as a possible new Fire Station site sometime down the line, but this option would disappear if a new school went up on the spot.
“No matter what we do, someone will be unhappy,” Craigie said.
Town Meeting always gets the final yes or no vote, but the School Committee must make difficult decisions about when to ask for what.
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